


English

by preferredmethodofprocrastination



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bisexual Peggy Carter, F/F, I would say this is a slow burn but Angie is a lesbian and that's not how she rolls, Lesbian Angie Martinelli, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2020-11-27 02:04:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20940491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preferredmethodofprocrastination/pseuds/preferredmethodofprocrastination
Summary: After a medal ceremony commemorating the recently deceased Captain Steve Rogers, and his legacy as Captain America, a well dressed and very distressed Peggy Carter stumbles into the old fashioned diner where Angie Martinelli, struggling Broadway actress works. Angie falls in love at first sight, and Peggy, she falls a little more slowly.





	1. That Dress

Angie’s eyes flew upwards from her task at the ringing of the bell. She almost felt her brain crash against the inside of her skull she looked up so fast. It had been nearly an hour since the last customers had left, so the 24 hour diner remained open, but empty. 

She wore a blue strapless velvet dress that rippled down to her mid-calf. It was practically a sin, the dress, but Angie wasn’t sure if it was because of how much skin it did or didn’t cover. Her whole sternum was visible, it dipped so low. Angie swallowed hard and forced herself not to ogle. The woman was shoeless as well, carrying her red bottoms in one hand and her clutch in the other. She padded up to the counter and settled down across from Angie, who had paused in the middle of rolling up another set of cutlery in a white paper napkin. The well dressed stranger picked up a menu from the bar and began leafing through it.

“You on Broadway?”

“No,” the woman said. “Are you?” She set down the menu and rested her chin in her palm, tapping her blue nails against her cheek.

“You think if I was on Broadway I’d be working here?” Angie scoffed, grabbing a rag to wipe down the counter. There had been a few kids earlier who couldn't seem to get their milkshakes from their glasses into their mouths very efficiently.

“I know plenty of people who’d have to do both to afford rent in this city,” she closed her eyes and sighed. Angie paused for a moment, imagining what kind of apartment she must have, with that dress and those shoes she was either on thin ice, or drowning in money. The woman spoke with an English accent, three parts crisp and reminiscent of the upper echelon of society, the Queen’s English, like the one she learned to imitate in her theater undergrad, and one part a more relaxed and fluid, from the other side of the London tracks.

“Yeah,” Angie chuckled, finishing her last cutlery pack for the night.

“May I have a grilled cheese, please…” English peered trying to read Angie’s nametag “Left my damned lenses at home... Angie?”

“Cheese toastie? In that dress?”

“I might ask you for an extra napkin or two.”

“I have a jacket in the back that might work better,” Angie paused to grab the jacket and put in the order. Sam was the cook on duty that night and did not object whatsoever to putting a little extra cheese in the sandwich for the pretty lady sitting at the counter, as there was no one else there at that hour.

“Why aren’t you chivalrous, Angie.” English took the jacket and shrugged it on back to front, perhaps wanting to avoid the perils of zipping up a far too small jacket over her cleavage. Angie had never had the experience herself, but was aware that the problem existed.

“More chivalrous than your date to whatever that dress is for I expect. Where is he? Leaving you to come to a greasy diner at two AM...”

“I didn’t have a date, actually,” English interrupted.

“That’s a crime. No one in a matching blue velvet tie?” Angie chuckled

“No,” English looked down, suddenly interested in the menu again. Touchy subject so Angie diverted the topic, if only slightly.

“What was the event?” Angie asked, growing ever more captivated by the woman in her diner.

“Medal ceremony,” the Englishwoman cleared her throat, “for Captain America.”

“Oh,” the air stilled. Captain Steven Grant Rogers, fondly known as Captain America, had been killed in action fighting a right wing Neo-Nazi group, Hydra, trying to bomb some of the biggest cities in the West. He was a Brooklyn boy by birth, and so New York had agreed to host a sort of memorial that also functioned to bring his foundation into existence, but also to give his friends the hollow honor of accepting his medals for him. Many of them declined, covert operations not allowing them to reveal themselves to the public, but those that had come were his personal unit of members of a number of armed forces. They were almost solely responsible for taking down Hydra. “How’d you get an invite to that party?”

“I worked with him,” she said, barely audible above the purring music that Sam put on at night.

“Closely, huh?” Angie reached over the counter and placed her hands on those of the Englishwoman, stroking her thumb across the smooth skin, across the knuckles and the 

“Very,” there was a small break in the Englishwoman’s voice.

“Would you like a milkshake with that, English?” She nodded slowly in response, wiping away a tear that threatened her flawless mascara.


	2. We Meet Again

Angie didn’t see the Englishwoman again for a week, but when she did, it wasn’t at the diner. English paid cash at the diner, and hadn’t revealed her name over the course of their interaction, even though it had lasted more than an hour and a half, alone at the counter, with Sam in the back watching videos on his phone. Internet stalking had only gotten her so far and she’d been unable to unearth  _ any _ information on the strange and beautiful creature that had stumbled upon her shift at the Diner. Not a name, not a single picture. 

She’d almost lost hope when, wonder of wonders, she encountered her again at the little Italian market where she bought her wine, her pasta, and her bread. She wasn’t a very good Italian other than her eating habits since she had long since stopped going to mass, started eating pussy, and began tattooing her body. Some of her relatives were a little appalled, but both of her Nonnas still loved her and that was what mattered to her in the end.

They reached for the same bottle of olive oil and Angie saw the blue nails, a little worse for wear. But she recognized them all the same. She turned her gaze up and saw those big brown doe eyes once again. She melted, a smile rushing across her face, her heart beating faster.

“Angie!” English recognized her too! It was a relief to see and hear her recognition, She reached in and embraced her, in that way that women do when the encounter someone they know deeply and dearly. “Thank you so much for being so kind to me. You’ve no idea the night I was having!” Angie relished the hug, the warmth, the closeness, the scent of the same perfume that had been fading from her jacket for a week now.

“I can only imagine,” she was released from the hug and English grabbed the bottle of olive oil, and one of the little containers of pesto directly adjacent. “Would you like to come over for dinner?” English turned to her again. She was, perhaps rightfully, befuddled. 

“Before I consider going to your home for a meal, I have two questions,” she leaned against the table in the center which held a number of baskets full of various very Italian items ( (among them were a few pasta makers, magnets and flags and maps, some childrens toys made of plastic).

“Ask away, English,” Angie said, and leaned too.

“Angie, do you know my name?” she said with a positively wicked grin.

“No.” Angie cleared her throat. “You neglected to tell me the first time we met.”

“Mmmmm,” she said, her voice a rich hum. “Second question for you.”

“Yes?” Angie waited, heartbeat skipping with anticipation.

“What’s for dinner?” Angie’s entire body relaxed into bliss. That was almost a yes to dinner. 

“Salad, bread, pasta, wine,” Angie listed the items weighing down her basket.

“That sounds delightful.”

“Does that mean you’re coming?”

“I’ll tell you what,” English said in a conspiratorial tone. “I have some errands to run before dinner time rolls around. I’ll let you know if I can come around 7:30, and be there no later than 8.”

“Does this mean I get your name and number?” Angie asked, trying to be coy.

“Yes,” English smiled from ear to ear and, ignoring Angie’s growing blush, reached for Angie’s phone. Which happened to be in her back pocket. English stepped in close, reaching under Angie’s arm and sliding her hand in to grab her phone. Her hand grazed Angie’s ass and hip as she pulled away and once again Angie could smell her perfume, as she had on her jacket since they’d first met. English popped open the phone and raised an eyebrow.

“No passcode?” she asked, incredulous.

“N-no. Don’t really have much important on there, really,” Angie was trying VERY hard to hide her blush, tucking her head a bit down and away from the Englishwoman, scratching the back of her head. 

“Well, here I am,” she finished typing and handed the phone back to Angie.

“Peggy Carter,” she read from the newly saved contact. An American number, She marked her company down as Dinner.

“I put an emoji by my name so I’m easier to find for later,” she said, tucking one of her dark curls behind her ear. She had indeed put an emoji there, a tiny Union Jack. Angie smiled but shook her head. She was already far too fond of this woman. “I’ll see you later, then,” Peggy Carter paid and left the store without much other ceremony. But Angie stood still for a little while relishing the name on her lips, the aftertaste of a prayer for beauty.


	3. Buckle Up

Peggy turned off her civilian smartphone and slid it into her purse upon arriving at her car. She was tempted to slam her head against the car horn and scream at herself. She decided against it and instead chanted “stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” under her breath for a minute until she composed herself enough to drive. She used her car’s secured bluetooth to connect with her work phone and called Howard.

“Are you coming, Carter?” Howard said, nonchalant, breath lazy but labored (Peggy had been trying to get him to quit smoking for years but he claimed vaping didn’t hit the same way).

“Yes! Of course, I’m coming!” She snapped, loudly. There was a moment of silence from the other end of the line.

“That was,” Howard paused, enigmatically and dramatically searching for the appropriate words to describe her unwarranted outburst.

“The words you’re looking for are either ‘tense’ or ‘bitchy’, bro,” Tony said. The phone was on speaker, just her luck.

“Shut up, Tony, or I will send you to military school!” Howard threatened is little brother without much thought. Peggy imagined both brothers growing redder underneath their ruddy complexions and various stages of beards.

“I’m in college!” Tony protested.

“You’re still a minor and I have pull at a number of military universities. His threat still stands, Tony,” Peggy spoke up again, less snapping but still cold and frank.

“Why does she get to be late to the meeting? You’d cut me off if I was late for a meeting!” Tony complained loudly. She heard a chair sliding away from the table and a few grumbling steps away from the receiver.

“Cause she’s the boss. The meeting starts when she gets here.” She knew Howard’s patience for Tony ran thin sometimes, but the two were so alike that he had to sympathize with him. They were both tortured genius types with addictive personalities.

“Howard, take me off speaker,” Peggy ordered.

“Yes’m,” Howard said. “At your disposal, Director Carter.”

“I saw her again,” Peggy said, trying not to slip back into the thoughts about how Angie’s eyes felt searching hers. Their blue depths were so soft, so gentle, so wanton. It felt so like Steve’s sweet, worshipful gaze, but so different.

“Who?” Howard asked, soft, curious.

“The pretty waitress.” She said softly, closing her eyes, remembering Angie’s comforting touch the night of the award ceremony, when she had been stronger than ever but a half second from losing her mind.

“Yes?” Howard replied, intoning his question carefully, not demanding an answer, but asking all the same.

“She invited me to dinner.”

“Yes!”

“Do you want this to happen? Do you think I should get over him this easily?”

“You…” Howard paused for a second and she could imagine him rubbing his prematurely greying temples in exasperation. “Peggy, Steve isn’t coming back. Getting over someone is for breaking up. He died. You should take comfort in the company of others, grieve, and honor him by honoring yourself,” there was a long pause and Peggy buckled herself in and took the car out of park. As she rolled out of her parking spot and into the mild traffic Howard spoke again.

“He’s gone, Peg. Go eat with the pretty girl,” Howard said. She could hear the sadness in his voice too. She wasn’t the only one who missed Steve dearly.

“I’m…” she muttered. Her breath stopped for a moment, her heart stopped in her chest.

“What?” Howard asked, absentmindedly. He hadn’t truly heard her, probably distracted by Tony’s latest antics.

“I’m coming, be there in 15.” She stepped on it.


	4. Blood Everywhere

Peggy noticed she was being followed five minutes after she hung up on Howard. Her eyes caught the gold of the drivers hair once during one lane shift, and then again during a second. She saw the red nails after her third turn off her usual route. She saw the gun in the back, and the gun in the passenger seat, after brake checking the tailing car, a black sedan, Russian, a Lada. The woman driving was rather beautiful, but in a way that made Peggy’s whole body shiver with fear. 

Peggy reached for her own gun, tucked in its holster behind the center console with one hand, breathing slowly in and out, trying to calm the adrenaline coursing through her veins. The driver saw her reach and she heard the roar of the Lada’s engine. 

She only just avoided being rear ended but running the red light in front of her. Despite the packed street ahead of her she kept her foot planted on the gas.

There was a deafening honking of horns when she finally slammed on her brakes. Her car slid to a stop just short of a city bus, only to be rammed into from behind by the redheaded woman and her Russian car. Peggy’s head hit the airbag and she felt her nose crack and her brain clatter against the front of her skull. She managed to keep a hold of her gun with her right hand, and open her door with her left hand, though her eyes were positively blind from watering. 

She stumbled out the door only to be faced with the barrel of a gun.

Traffic around them was stopped, people gasping and recording, calling the police. She saw a few cops already creeping up on the scene on foot.

“What the fuck did I do to you, ma’am?” Peggy spat, blood running thick down her chin and drooling onto her shirt. Those stains were going to be a bitch to remove.

“You have access to something I want,” she said. Her English was perfect, but tinged with some slavic origin Peggy’s newly concussed and panicking brain could not identify more specifically than that.

“What would that be?” Peggy asked, wiping blood from her mouth and wiping it on her pant leg.

“Captain Rogers blood.” Peggy’s heart fell out of her chest and nearly stopped beating. “I need you to tell me where it is.” Her jaw dropped open for a moment as images flashed in front of her eyes. Her boys running, Steve getting a paper cut and laughing as it healed in front of their eyes, Bucky and Steve tussling because of their combined idiotic behavior, Steve and Peggy’s first kiss, their last kiss and those in between, all the nights spent camping out in abandoned buildings and hunting Hydra, the work and the laughter. Peggy shook her head to clear the images from her waking mind before she reached the most horrible ones, she gripped her gun more tightly and gritted her teeth. 

“Can’t you just ask for nuclear codes? Like a normal spy?” Peggy asked, mockingly. She made brief eye contact with the young dark haired police officer just behind her slavic assassin and he nodded at her, pointing his weapon at the woman from behind.

The woman twitched at the cocking of his gun and turned. He took two shots to the chest before he could pull his trigger. The woman whipped around again and pointed the gun at Peggy once more. In that time Peggy had drawn her gun to the woman’s eye level. They stood now as twins, same posture, same determination and hatred filling their eyes.

“Who do you work for?” Peggy asked. 

“Leviathan,” she hissed. “We are coming, Director.”

“Noted, but how are you going to escape?” Peggy asked incredulously.

“Who? You and your idiot civilian officers?” she scoffed. 

“Yeah,” Peggy said. “So what’s your plan?”

“Like this!” The woman punctuated her sentence by smacking a button on her wristwatch. There was an explosion and Peggy hit the dirt, letting pieces of the unassuming little car parked at the meter a hundred feet from her crash and smoke all around her.

As if her day couldn’t get any worse, when she and the cops looked up the woman was gone, disappeared into thin air, heavy with smoke. Peggy rolled onto her back and groaned.The young dark haired officer did the same. He wasn’t dead, his vest had saved his life, but she could imagine that he’d be very sore for a while.

“Damn.” She whispered to herself, brushing ashes off her clothes. “Gonna be late to that meeting.”


End file.
